Razorlight change 'like break-up'

Johnny Borrell insists there was no bad feeling when the Razorlight line-up changes as their musical bond had ''run its course''

Johnny Borrell admits changing the Razorlight line-up was like a "relationship ending".

The frontman is now joined in the band by Freddie Stitz, Gus Robertson and David 'Skully' Sullivan Kaplan following the departures of Bjorn Agren and Carl Dalemo soon after drummer Andy Burrows quit acrimoniously, and the singer insists there is no bad feeling with his old bandmates as their musical bond had "run its course".

He said: "I've got nothing bad to say about anyone I make music with. All that happened was we were trying to make a record, it wasn't really working, and I thought, 'I could sit here and work out, make a plan of what I could do. Or I could just do something.'

"So I rented a studio and sat down and said, 'Look, I've met some other people.' A band breaking up is like a relationship ending - you know it's right to move on but that doesn't mean it's not painful.

"Absolutely everything that was going on, I was sitting down and talking to Bjorn and Carl all the time. But in terms of us making music together it had just run its course."

Despite the line-up change, Johnny believes the band is now closer to its origins than ever before.

He told NME magazine: "It weirdly feels closer to when Razorlight started than anything felt over the last seven years, because there's an honesty and an energy there.

"It's not precious. And at points Razorlight were quite precious, it was like, 'If we're not headlining the festival, we're not doing it.' And that wasn't coming from me."